CSU science graduate tags new career prospects

Thursday 12 Jan 2017

Studying science at Charles Sturt University (CSU) led
Ms Bettina Grieve on a two-month adventure tagging fish in the
Mekong River, giving her an appreciation of international scientific collaboration.

Ms Grieve recently graduated with
a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and her research in Laos PDR examined the
effectiveness of Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT), or microchip, tagging on
two species of Mekong River fish.

"The Mekong River is experiencing
unprecedented development for hydropower," Ms Grieve said. "Fishways have been
proposed as a method to mitigate the impacts of this development on fish
migration and biodiversity, so tagging is a way of measuring if the strategy is
working."

Microchip tagging is already used
in Australia to measure fish migration but this was the first time the
technology had been assessed on the Mekong native fish species; striped catfish and
goldfin tinfoil barbs.

"The
research aimed to determine the best
physical location to apply the device, in the chest, gut or shoulder," Ms
Grieve said.

"I found
the overall retention rate and survival from tagging was high for both species,
with no difference in the tag rejection rates or survival rates between
the different tagged locations for both species.

"In
addition, there was no difference in weight change between the different
tag locations for both species.

"The Mekong River is one of the
most biological diverse river systems in the world and is renowned for its fish
fauna, home to an estimated 1 200 species of tropical fish.

"This study showed that PIT tags
are an effective method to use on selected Mekong species and could form the
basis for migration studies in the future."

Along with contributing to the
effort to understand fish migration in the Mekong, Ms Grieve said the
international research experience has been personally rewarding.

"I learnt how to effectively
PIT tag fish in hot and humid conditions, working in teams where not everyone
is from the same culture nor speaks the same language," she said.

"It has taught me how essential
international collaboration is on improving global understanding of big issues
such as the lack of information on fish movement and migration in the Mekong."

Ms Grieve has been awarded a
position in Sydney Water's four-year graduate program.

"I hope to use my international
experience and new found knowledge of fish and PIT tagging to, one day, improve
Australian inland fisheries and mitigate the impacts of human water use and barriers
on local fish populations," Ms Grieve said.

Ms Grieve graduated with a
Bachelor of Science (Honours) at a ceremony in Albury on Tuesday 13 December.

Her Honours research was part of a wider collaborate effort between CSU, Living Aquatic Resources Research
Centre (Laos), National University of Laos and the Research Institute for
Aquaculture (Vietnam). Read more on CSU
News here.